greenwithwheels

Im in the process of building up a iro rob roy and its going to be my main bike in years (hopefully not stolen or anything) and i have a good idea of what i want. I want a high quality bike but not real blingy because iro isnt that blingy of a company. heres my set up

Headset-king
Handlebar-nitto randonneur
Stem-tompson or salsa
Bar Tape-fizik
Saddle-selle italia flite or that nice fizik one
Seat Post-again salsa or thompson
Crankset-sugino xd
Bottom Bracket-phil wood
Chain-wipperman
Brakes-avid shorty 6
Levers-cane creek
Fork-iro
Wheelset- paul ss mountain and the paul word in the front with open pro rims and dt spokes(im going to build them)
Tires-bontrager jones, cause i can get them pretty cheap at the shop i work at.

remember no frills/blingyness just high quality stuff.

flargle

What is your question?

greenwithwheels

what would you change on that list? any suggestions that might be better or any reasons not to get any of those? do you know of something that is built better than those components? Opinions and changes you guys think i should make

Cyclist01012

Skip the king head set and use a go with a cheaper one. you will really not notice a difference exept for the cost. Same with the bottome bracket I would go with a shimano one.
For handle bars you might want to look at Salsa bell laps.
And last but not least skip the Bontrager tires, I had a lot of flats on a set of t hease a couple of years ago. Have not had a problem sence I went to speed max's.

jfmckenna

^^ agreed but actually I like the Bonty Jones tires. Don't like any of their road tires but I like the Jones CX's.

cs1

+1

It is nice though to be able to sell your used headset on ebay for 90% of what you paid new though. CK headsets have a great resale value.

Tim

Cyclist0383

+1

Shimano makes great BBs and FSA makes great headsets.

bonechilling

Yeah, but that 10% is the cost of a single Cane Creek S2 headset.

flargle

If it were me, I'd get a nicer frameset, the price of which could easily be offset by going for slightly less boutique-y componentry.

TXBDan

How is any of that no frills? Do you know what no frills means?


No frills = my '87 steel road frame+brakes+cranks, nashbar stem, drops, Forte wheelset, old mountain derailer and cassette. It all cost less than your spec'ed headset.

shapelike

Other than the Surly Cross-Check and Bianchi San Jose what else comes to mind for a similarly-priced cyclocross bike with track ends?

Edit: For that matter, is the San Jose even available as a frame set?

gobes

Specialized Tricross.

flargle

Eccentric BB or rear hub, and the world opens up.

shapelike

Personally, I'm not interested in the White Industries hub but that EBB option would be great. I don't know of anything out there though ... maybe Steel Wool is doing something (their bikes don't fit me unfortunately). That Specialized is a fun-looking bike but their squishy inserts scream "marketing gimmick" to me. The price is in the ballpark though.

Here, let's play "Maybe if I Really, Really Wish Hard Enough" for a second:

Dear Niner Bikes,

Please make a cyclocross version of the One 9 and SIR 9. Failing that, please just get into the cyclocross market and build me a bike. I like your 29er stuff a lot.

Hugs + kisses,

- Mike

greenwithwheels

if you can tell by the set up i am going for something that is nicer than most just not all cromed out and blingy. The component advice i was looking for was these white industries ss cranks are nice you should check them out. no frills wasnt the phrase to describe it but just quality stuff that isnt flashy. I want something more than something that "will work" like some absolute low end huffy kinda thing even though that is really what no frills is. If anyone knows of some companies that make nice stuff that would go with that set up i would like to here it.

Thanks for all the opinions guys. Hopfully all of this stuff will come to a bike soon.

TimJ

I want something more than something that "will work" like some absolute low end huffy kinda thing even though that is really what no frills is. If anyone knows of some companies that make nice stuff that would go with that set up i would like to here it.

Well as others have pointed out your list is composed of high end stuff. There's a range of options between high end and huffy, I'm sure you know that.

Or you could go the opposite way and instead of paul hubs get phil, instead of a sugino crankset get a paul, instead of a thompson seatpost get a titanium moots, etc. You've chosen really nice stuff and it' all fine, but if you could spend about 1/2 as much and still have a great bike.

Psydotek

I'm planning on going as cheap as possible on everything except critical parts. I'll probably end up purchasing the IRO v1 build kit again for the drivetrain along with the FSA Orbit headset, stem, and hubs all at once to get as much as possible in a single purchase (i did the same thing for my previous IRO build).

The things i'll splurge on are going to be the seatpost (Thomson Elite) and the wheels (Deep-V rims, spokes from the LBS, assembled by me, trued/tensioned by the LBS).

I've already got a full set of Avid Shorty 4 brakes and i'm going to purchase the rest of the necessary components from nashbar/performance/jenson (at least the handlebars, saddle, and brake levers). Bartape and tires will come from either the LBS or www.biketiresdirect.com (they have a nice selection of tape in a variety of colors). Speedgoat.com is also pretty good for other small bits if i can't find them elsewhere.

Oh, last but not least a pair of MKS chain tensioners will be ordered from www.thebikebiz.com

flargle

No less an authority than Padraig likes the Roubaix, which has Zertz. Even if they are a gimmick, that doesn't mean the frame itself is bad.

Might you be able to get a Gunnar Crosshairs with track-ends? That's in a whole new realm for frame price, though, but would be mighty sweet.

I like TimJ's suggestions for components. When I was building up my cross bike, I built a spreadsheet where each row was a component, so I could mix/match and compare prices very easily. I would even make little bar plots of price by component, and found this really brought home where the budget was going.

shapelike

They're different. I've examined both in front of me at the same time and while certain parts definitely come out of the exact same mold the bushings and springs are better on the Cane Creek levers. Worth twice the price? That's your call, but it's more than just a different pattern on the hoods.

M_S

One of the springs popped out on my Tektro lever, but it didn't seem to affect performance at all. Odd. I just clipped off the part that stuck out and kept riding. Mind you this was after some 3000 mixed road and off road miles and more crashes than I care to admit.

TimJ

The return springs are pretty weak and I don't think they do much for performace, they're just nice for keeping your levers from going floppy when the cable is unfastened, say.

I had a pair of tektros and somehow the bolt that goes into the... uh, well you know, the fastener, somehow that got stripped a little and not only that, the nut that is in the fastener came loose and started to spin around. So what I had was levers that couldn't be removed because they wouldn't loosen or tighten, the bolt and the nut just spun around. I had to saw my bars in half to get the levers off to see what happened. This mishap led ultimately to seperate my ac joint in a crash on borrowed bike on a warmup lap before my first cx race.

Consequently I don't trust 'em any more. Maybe the cane creeks have better fasteners and bolts, but I doubt it.

shapelike

Ouch, what a ****ty crash.

sloppy robot

never skip a king headset unless you dont have the money.. it will outlast all of those three times over.. im still riding a king 1 inch from '92 that sat in the rain for 2 years... still better than any headset ive had..

you get what you pay for..unless youre quitting cycling sometime soon.. just pay now.

M_S

Then again, how often do people actually replace headsets out of necessity?

Not that king isn't good (the best). I do think that it's more important on a cross bike than a road bike.

sfcrossrider

I'd drop the Phil, Nito, and King if I were you and invest in a carbon fork. I'm building my IRO strictly for SSCX racing. It's 100% generic minus an Easton carbon fork. It will be light, and bomb proof. The money I save buying Forte crap from Performance will go a LONG way in race fees and crash replacement parts.